Nice quote but it is literally survival bias.

You might hear from old people wishing they'd done more, you don't hear from young people who died while climbing mountains, swimming rivers, or ...er ... eating ice cream.

Which is to say: how cautious or not to be at any point in time is actually a very complex judgement. Seizing the day and living in the moment are important, but so is planning ahead, thinking about the future, practicing restraint at the right times and knowing when not to eat ice cream.

You also don't hear from the people who died in a car accident after fighting with their spouse on the way to their dead-end job.

You don't hear about the people who stayed at their "secure" job as opposed to joining a more risky venture, only to lose their job the next month.

> how cautious or not to be at any point in time is actually a very complex judgement.

I think people are taking what was said a bit too far. You can do very safe mountain climbs and see some awesome views, and safely swim rivers near shore, You can reasonably live without taking absurd risks.

>Nice quote but it is literally survival bias.

It is, but it isn't as drastic effect as say the survival bias from war or something. The logic being that under today's circumstances, many people live to grow old without the serious threat of from large scale war, famine and disease. In other words, there is survivor bias, but it is significantly diluted by the fact that almost everybody survives. For survivor bias to be significant, you have to have a lot of people not survive.

This is a common, and dangerous, form of selection bias that we often see when old successful people give their wise advice to 'live life to the fullest'. Sure, it's easy to wax lyrical about taking chances when you already know that you made it to the end of your natural life in reasonable shape and with a nice amount of material wealth.

The people who did live that way and suffered a career-ending injury, or were killed in some dodgy third world country, or simply died a pauper - nobody cares about their advice.

"This is a common, and dangerous, form of selection bias that we often see when old successful people give their wise advice to 'live life to the fullest'."

Common and dangerous.

On the other hand, I took risks when I was younger, and got a very annoying disability in the process. I wish I was more careful.

Sometimes people forget that taking risks doesn't always end well. I took a big financial risk in the 1990s which ended up costing me 15 years of savings and a long period of anxiety and depression. If it had worked out I could now give speeches about the need for taking risks...

Can you share what that risk was?

Blockbuster shares

I think the key is differentiating between real risks (wingsuits are dangerous!) and fake ones (who cares if strangers give you weird looks because you’re barefoot).

In my case, it was just dancing for a couple hours non-stop at the disco while on mild drugs... It was enough for life-long tinnitus.

On the other hand though, I think it's just biological imperative. Statistically, young men (up to around 25 perhaps) are simply reckless and take stupid risks. They make the best soldiers (less fear for their life), extreme sportsmen etc., but obviously some of them end up dead or disabled.

Not make light of your disability but tinnitus is extremely common and can occur because of regular every day activity. When making risk assessments this one is way down on the list of priorities if it's there at all. For some it's even an occupational hazard that they just have to accept as part of their life, however I doubt most people consider being a musician as one of the more life threatening professions.

   (wingsuits are dangerous!) 

Several high-level wingsuit flyers were profiled in a short film called "The New Birdmen". I was struck by the calm rationality most exhibited in their commentary.

But then, many insist on flying extremely close to terrain, and that's where things go sideways. I'm the type who would be perfectly content to never be closer than 10+ meters to terrain, but that's not their mindset. Several pioneers shown in the film suffered deaths, none (apparently) from equipment failure.

> wingsuits are dangerous

Are they really that much more dangerous than parachuting? I know they have more fatalities but wingsuiting is only more dangerous because people take more risks with them and fly close to the ridgeline(typically you only get into wingsuiting if you are an experienced parachute operator). Similar to in rock climbing with typical roped climbing vs. free soloing(sans ropes).

Wingsuits aren't inherently dangerous, but they're only fun if you're flying close to things, and flying close to solid objects in an impromptu aircraft with terrible aerodynamics and highly questionable control scheme is dangerous.

So yes, wingsuits when used in the way that wingsuits are almost always used are inherently dangerous.

> but they're only fun if you're flying close to things

I only rock climb but wouldn't it still be fun to be in the air for a longer time even if you are not close to objects? I think the wingsuit craze of flying near objects has more to do with being bored of the normal parachute experience.

I'd imagine if you want more hang time you'd just open your parachute earlier. I've seen videos of people wingsuiting in clear air and it looks pretty boring.

Well it's about the sensation you get, not how it looks. With a wingsuit you can drift faster so it's already something, but it's true that you fully realize the (horizontal) speed you're flying at only when you're close to others objects.

Over the last fifteen years there have been three times as many wingsuit deaths as freesolo deaths, for what its worth.

the general practitioner of wingsuiting is pushing the limits of what can be done safely. watch video after video of them do close calls near the edge of a ridgeline. most(perhaps all?) freesoloists are well below their limit(hell even honnold only freesolos well below his limit).

>I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans,

I'm less than half the author's age, and I already regret eating too much ice cream and not enough beans.

reminds me of: "Have you ever sailed across an ocean? On a sailboat surrounded by sea with no land in sight? Without even the possibility of sighting land for days to come. The stand of your helm of your destiny. I want that. I want to be in Piazza del campo in Siena. I want another meal in Prague. I want another bottle of wine, and then another. I want the warmth of a woman in a cool set of sheets, One more night of love. I want to stand on summits and smoke cubans and feel the sun on my face for as long as I can. Walking the wall again , climb the tower, ride the river, stare at the stars. I want to sit in the garden and read one more good book. Most of all I want to sleep, I want to sleep like I slept when I was a boy, Give me that Just one time" R. Reddington (The Blacklist)

As someone who has taken more than their share of risks in life I have to say most of them were worth it! Even if I ended up broke and divorced :-)

And without trying will you ever know?

This website: http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/jorge_luis_borges/p... claims it is the poem "Instants" by Borges.

Nah, it's apocryphal according to Wikipedia. And nothing like Borges would write, according to me ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moments_(poem)